Getting started
Really quick start
- Log in here (if you aren't already); click through to a document
- To make a comment click or drag over the part of the page you want to comment on, and type your comment in the box that pops up. Press Save.
- To download and/or print the original of a file you can see on screen: press and open the file in an application that can read it.
- To read other people's comments click on the red "proof marks"
(
etc.)
scattered over the pages, or to view them systematically press the up and down arrows
(
)
to the right of the yellow comment tab.
Your rôle
Ensembling is about working together to produce publications,
whether on paper or in electronic form. In doing this you will have a
particular rôle (which may differ from project to project). For
example, you may be a proof reader, making comments on material as it
is developed. Or you may be a contributor, originating and amending
materials. A separate editor may be appointed to decide what comments
to accept or reject. More about
rôles…
Logging in and identification
The first thing you will need to do is log in. If you don't have a
password, just enter your email address and we'll send an email
confirming it is you. More about logging
in…
Then you'll need to identify yourself by name for the
benefit of your colleagues. You can also give yourself a password
here, ask to stay logged in and change other settings personal to
you. More about identifying
yourself…
You will need to be assigned to a project by its project leader to
see and work on it, though you can be assigned automatically to some
projects given the relevant URL. You can also make a trial project in
the home folder.
Workflow
The idea is that contributors (including authors and photographers,
and, where appropriate, people not connected to the project, by way of
a dead letterbox) upload (or email)
files to Ensembling. We store multiple versions of files, comments
and other information along with files, and we call this collectively
a document. Documents are grouped into
folders (possibly within other folders) as
on your computer, and folders into projects (which are shown as the top-most
folders).
Each document (and in fact each version of a file, each set of
comments, and each folder) have their own URLs, so you may jump
straight to a document by clicking on a link someone sent to
you. Alternatively you may start at the top and navigate down through
the folders to the document you need by clicking on the icons or names
of intermediate folders and eventually the document. The top left of
each screen shows you where you are in this folder hierarchy, and you
can click on the names there to go back to any level.
Proof readers then get to work making comments on the draft documents. The editor
(who may also be the original author) indicates which comments to
adopt. The author can then make these changes in the original document
and upload a new version. And so on until everyone is happy.
Finally, the file can be made available outside the project. For
example, a PDF of the finished piece may be supplied to a printer by
way of a Ensembling URL.
The screen
Here's a quick run down of what you are looking at. Most of the
time you will be looking at the contents of a folder or the contents
of a document.
- At the top left is the list of folders where the item you are looking at is located.
- At the top right is a menu of administrative tasks you can do which aren't specifically related to the item you are looking at.
- Under the folder hierarchy is the name of the item you are looking at, and some information about it: who added it and when etc.
- Then comes a menu of tasks to do with the item you're looking at.
- Under that there may be a bit of text explaining the document, if anyone provided some.
- Then comments on the left and a preview of the version on the right.
Making a comment
To make a comment, click on the page at the place which the comment refers to. If your comment is about a word, sentence or paragraph or area of a picture, click and drag across the relevant portion.
Then type in your comment, and click Save. You can also, or
instead, select one of the many 'proof marks' as a quick way of saying
"delete this text" or "make lower case".
To see an existing comment, click on its proof mark on the
page. You can also step through the existing comments using the little
up and down arrows to the right of the yellow comment tab.
To respond to an existing comment,
click .
Downloading/printing a file
To get a copy of the original file, perhaps to print it, choose . You will need the application on
your computer that is able to read a file in whatever format, for
example Microsoft Word or Acrobat Reader.
If you are going to make changes to a file, it will be helpful to
your colleagues if you use
rather than .
You can also download lots of files at once in a Zip file, with .
Adding a file
Assuming you are a contributor to the project, go to the folder
where you want to add the document and choose . Choose the file, or paste
plain text, and possibly other information as required, and click
OK. A document doesn't necessarily have to have the same name as the
file.
You can also add new folders as
necessary, of course, and also upload several files and folders at
once, including in a Zip file which you can choose to have unzipped
automatically, or use (on the )
later if required.
Other things to do
As well as the obvious administrative things like being able to , (both on the menu)
and find information (,
on the menu) about items, you can (assuming your rôle
allows it) also:
- shuffle the order of items in a folder by dragging and dropping them. Also drop them into a different folder.
- items to move them from one folder to another or do other taks to them all at once.
- for text within all documents in a project.
- keep track of changes and comments other people make, either by email or an RSS feed. These are called watches.
- ( menu) for your colleagues to make comments. Watches will bug people about pending deadlines.
- ( menu) to explain a file or folder.
- ( menu) rotate pages if they are the wrong way up.
- ( menu): list the comments in a document (or all documents in a folder)
- ( menu) a file, thereby locking it from further changes.
- ( menu) a file by making a public URL for it.